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Oliver grinned, then ran over to Chloe and threw his arms around her, squeezing her tight. “You mashed two of our ideas together. It’s brilliant.”

The first slice was set down in front of them, with two forks like always.

I’m going to marry you someday,Chloe thought.And this will be the flavor of our wedding cake.

Oliver

Oliver was taking lunch at Giovanni’s Croissants & Baguettes. He and Giovanni had met through jiu jitsu about a year ago. Although Giovanni used to work out at a studio in Astoria where he lived, he’d started coming into one in Manhattan where Oliver trained because it was a couple blocks away from the bakery, which he’d spent many months remodeling and then launching. And since you bond pretty quickly with the guys you spend hours with each week wrestling on the mat, when Giovanni opened the doors of his shop, Oliver was the first customer. He was here now every weekday for lunch.

“That new flavor you suggested is already sold out!” Giovanni said as he set a fat slice of quiche Lorraine on Oliver’s table. “Who’d have ever thought to make a chocolate croissant with a swirl of mulberry jam inside? Brilliant, Ol.”

Oliver said nothing. He couldn’t take credit for the flavor. It was that run-in with Chloe in Little Tokyo that had triggered a memory of chocolate ice cream with a mulberry jam swirl. They had come up with it together, once upon a time.

Giovanni went back behind the counter to tend to his customers, and Oliver cut into his quiche. Before he could take a bite, though, the sun glinted through the plate glass window, and he looked up.

Chloe stood on the sidewalk, the wind fluttering at the hem of her jewel-green sundress, her mouth slightly open in clear delight at Giovanni’s bakery name stenciled in gold on the window. Did she know him, too?

She burst in through the door. Oliver froze, fork suspended in the air.

He felt her gasp as she saw him, even from across the room, because he’d inhaled at the exact moment, too. How could it be that after all this time,it still felt like this to see her? Even after what he’d done to her—way back when, and also recently, on the street in Little Tokyo?

Chloe laughed—that familiar, piano-like trill that had once been the soundtrack of Oliver’s life—and as she walked toward him, nervous anticipation flailed like a live wire inside his rib cage.

“It’s you again,” Chloe said.

Just four syllables from her, and sparks flickered across his skin.

“You were rude to me last time, you know,” she said, in that generous way she had of forgiving people even when they didn’t deserve it. Chloe had always been like that, even when they were kids.

But Oliver frowned. Maybe if he pretended he didn’t remember their last encounter, she’d go away. Which was the exact opposite of what he really wanted, but it would be better that way. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Chloe hesitated, as if deciding whether she was mistaken. “Little Tokyo? I crashed into you on the sidewalk and apologized, but you were still a jerk about it?”

Oliver winced.

“Ah-ha! So youdoremember!” Chloe laughed again, and the warmth of it felt like the sun rising in Oliver’s chest. “Well, you can make it up to me by buying me a coffee. I’ll have a caramel cappuccino.”

Oliver glanced down at his own mug, and his stomach fluttered.

They had discovered coffee together, illicitly, at twelve years old, when they were definitely not yet supposed to be having caffeine. It had happened after the first day of middle school. They were biking to her house, but since the school was in a slightly different part of town than either of them knew, they’d gotten turned around. Chloe and Oliver wandered onto the University of Kansas campus and somehow ended up on the lawn of a sorority house.

“Oh my goodness!” one of the girls had cried. “Are you two adorable things lost?”

“No,” Oliver said. “We don’t get lost.”

“We’re just… taking the scenic route,” Chloe said, echoing something her dad always said when they were driving and he was definitely lost.

“Wait,” another girl said. “You’re Clover, from the Ice Creamery!”

Oliver wrapped his arm around Chloe proudly. “Yep, that’s us.”

“Come inside,” the girls said. “We’ll call the Ice Creamery and tell Chloe’s parents to come get you. You can have some caramel cappuccinos and cake while you wait.”

Caramel cappuccinos had been one of Clover’s “things” from that day on. (Chloe used to blame the caffeine for stunting her growth, but it certainly hadn’t stopped Oliver—he was six one.) Of course, Oliver didn’t drink such frivolities anymore. Even with Giovanni’s friend discount, a cappuccino still cost too much more than regular drip coffee for Oliver to justify such a daily luxury.

Sure, he could afford it, but he’d learned the hard way that everything you had could vanish in an instant. That’s what happened when you grew up with a con artist for a mother, who lost as often as she “won.”

So now Oliver meticulously saved every extra cent he could.